


The Red Room

by brutalitea, rararawr (sunshineinwriting)



Series: Making Life out of Ashes [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Cock & Ball Torture, M/M, Magic-Users, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Rough Sex, Spells & Enchantments, Under-negotiated Kink, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 15:35:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5503208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brutalitea/pseuds/brutalitea, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineinwriting/pseuds/rararawr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Pike is a newly-discovered sadist, freshly returned to England after World War I and ready to beat some of his demons out of himself.</p><p>Fai Chen is a healer and sorcerer, the second son of the Chen Family, in charge of their brothels and whores. He's also a masochist.</p><p>When they meet, someone is going to get hurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Red Room

**Author's Note:**

> rararawr:
> 
> As with most things I write, this was inspired originally by my dear Stephanie (brutalitea). She had created a character design for a truly masochistic character, and she was looking for a hardcore sadist to roleplay him with. Although never having created a character even remotely like that (my characters tend toward the sweet and emotionally intelligent), I offered to give it a shot, and... voila. Yet another one of our RP universes took shape.
> 
> James is seriously fucked up, here, guys. His family life is shit, he has enough self-loathing and self-image issues to drown a horse, and he's just gotten back from arguably the worst war in history. He's in a bad place, and Fai, although not a nice guy, helps him out with some of it.
> 
> Also, James is a DICK. Like, seriously. A lot of period-typical homophobia and racism in here. I use the words 'Oriental' and 'chink' a lot. I know they're offensive, but they're accurate for the time period. Sorry.
> 
> Although it's probably obvious, Stephanie writes all of Fai's perspective, and I write all of James' perspective. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy.

James was nervous.

He tried not to show it, though. One thing the war had been good for: he could now bluff with the best of them. So he surreptitiously scrubbed his sweaty palms against his pants, downed the rest of his bitter ale, and went to talk to the poised man at the end of the bar who was clearly taking the requests for the company of the sloe-eyed Oriental women littering the smoky room.

"One pound," the man said bluntly as soon as James approached. He was Oriental as well, his slanted eyes calculating as he looked James over. "Anyone in particular you want?"

James glanced vaguely around the red-appointed room, eyes moving over the red-dressed women without really taking them in. He leaned in closer. "What if I wanna get rough?"

The man's eyes narrowed even further knowingly. "A pound and a half for that," he replied, leaning back on his stool. "And we be checking, make sure she's not too damaged after."

James winced internally at the price -- a pound and a half could feed him for ten days, two weeks if he stretched it. But not many places let you get rough with their whores, at least not the way James wanted (needed) to, and the Red Rooms had a good reputation. "All right," he agreed. "Any of those girls here now?"

The man scanned the room, then tugged a rail-thin chink boy over. James had barely even seen the boy in the smoky dimness. The man gave an order in that strange nasally up-and-down language of theirs, and the boy disappeared into the mass of laughing, drinking patrons. "He'll get Wendy," the man said, turning back to James. "Now. Money, please."

James paid, and the boy reappeared with a skinny Oriental girl who appraised James with frank eyes. She said something to the man, who replied, and then she smiled at James. "Come on, honey," she said, her accent far thicker than her manager's. "I take you upstairs, ey?"

James nodded curtly, blood already heating in anticipation, and followed the whore upstairs.

\---

" _Gou gou_ ," Huan spoke at the door to Fai's office, drawing him from his paperwork. She looked bored today, which the healer took a bit of enjoyment out of. Boredom meant she wasn't getting into any trouble. "Auntie Lin says she needs you to check out a new regular customer."

Fai narrowed his eyes at her and pushed his hair from his face. "Why is Lin sending you to tell me? I told her to not involve you in Red Room business." It had been a strong agreement between the two brothers that headed the Chen family to keep their sisters out of the 'dirty parts' of running their organization as much as possible. Dayu, the middle child, had listened. Huan, the baby of the family, tended not to.

His little sister smiled, all dimples and smooth complexion at the bright age of nineteen, as if she hadn't just broken a serious rule. Again. "Because she's talking to the man downstairs now while they wait for you. He's very anxious to use a room. She said to tell you to hurry up."

"I doubt that very much, _xiaomei."_ Fai sighed as he stood from the desk and joined his sister at the door. Not a living soul outside of his immediate family would ever be so bold as to instruct him to hurry up. "But alright, show me this man. Is he Chinese?"

"No," Huan sighed dramatically as they moved together out of his office and into the red light of the stairway, descending into the cloud of smoke and noise of the first floor. "He's English. Why do we let them in? They're always rude."

"Because they pay well." Fai straightened his vest as they maneuvered through the crowd, bodies parting for him and his sister as if the risk of touching them was too taboo to chance. "And they keep the police from being suspicious."

"Whatever," Huan rolled her eyes and stopped as she reached Lin, the main woman of the Red Rooms, and a very... striking gentleman, about Fai's age, with the air of someone who was not pleased by being told to wait. Fai nodded to Huan, who broke away to presumably flirt with some men at the bar, and turned his attention to Lin.

"You asked for me?" Fai asked in English, his accent a hodgepodge between Birmingham, London, and somewhere further North.

"This man has become regular." Lin gave a small bow to the healer out of respect, gesturing with one hand to the stranger with the harsh face. Fai decided almost immediately that he found him very attractive. "He... _Special_ requesting regular." Quickly, the woman switched to Cantonese and said quietly, "he always asks for the pain girls," before returning to her heavily accented English. "Would like _nanwu_ to give him reading."

"Very well," Fai agreed, his gaze not having left the stranger's face. Calmly, he held out his hand with a smile that looked oddly sharp in the red lights of the room, and introduced himself. "My name is Lawrence Chen. It's nice to meet you, mister...?"

\---

"Pike," James said, taking the outstretched hand and looking over this new entrant into the odd dance he does every time he comes here. The young man --about James' age, maybe 25, 26-- is shorter, smaller than James in that slim way most Orientals have, but he also seems to be quite solid, body muscled and competent in whatever he needed it for. He was quite good-looking, but James pushed down his attraction with the ease and shame of long practice. "Just Pike. What's this about? You've never had a problem taking my money before." A bit curt, but James was fucking tired of this and he'd been waiting long enough.

"Oh, nothing to worry about," the young man assured him, still smiling that sharp smile that made James feel rather on edge. "Please follow me, mister Pike."

James raised his eyebrows skeptically, folding his arms across his chest and not moving. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what's going on." His accent roughened with his irritation, gaining a bit more Scots from his mum, and James scowled in annoyance. He knew what this place was; everyone in Birmingham knew about the Oriental crime lords, the moralists and churchmen shrieking about corruption and sin but the working folk just glad that someone was looking out for them, even if it was unconventionally. That didn't mean that James was stupid enough to go anywhere private with someone who seemed very much in charge of this place.

\---

Fai didn't blink as they shook hands, using the brief moment of contact to draw out as much information from this regular as possible. He was anxious, this James Pike, and had a strong wall of defensive armor built around himself, guarding the pulsing, angry energy underneath that flowed through his body like lava. Suspicion oozed out of his hands and tension blocked out his shoulders, and goodness, if Fai hadn't found him intriguing before, he certainly did now. Particularly since, with that brief hand contact, he got the impression that women were not the only thing James Pike was interested in.

Which was why when he resisted Fai's invitation, the healer found his smile only growing wider. "Very well," he conceded, all easy posture and smooth tones. "Miss Lin, if you wouldn't mind?"

The woman in red bowed respectfully to them both and slid out of the picture, working her way back into the crowd and leaving the two men in a small pocket of space. Although there didn't appear to be anybody eavesdropping, Fai never relied on that for discretion, so he attempted to be as vague as possible until he could maneuver the other man somewhere more discreet.

"I own the Red Rooms, Mr. Pike," he started, folding his hands calmly behind his back. "And I like to make sure my girls are well taken care of. When the workers notice someone becoming a regular--" he nodded to James, "--I like to have a chat with that man myself, to make sure there won't be any trouble." Here, Fai paused, still staring intently at James's face. "Particularly customers that play with the specialty girls."

For a moment, he let that hang in the air before resuming his businessman's smile and gesturing airily towards the staircase. "I have a public sitting room upstairs, if you wouldn't mind delaying your session for a brief talk. It's much too noisy down here."

\---

He _owned the Red Rooms_. Well, James thought ironically, if there was ever any doubt that this man was a blood-member of the mob family that ran this area, it had just been firmly dispelled. There were thousands of families named ‘Chen’ in the city, but only one mob family. This Lawrence Chen must be the son of the old Chen leader.

“Lead the way,” James said, resigned. He _really_ did not want to be noticed by the Chen family, and so the best thing he could do at this point was just follow this chink and hope Lawrence Chen didn’t do anything to make him lose his temper.

He followed the slightly shorter man through the crowd and up the staircase, hands flexing at his sides as his heart began to beat faster, scanning both sides surreptitiously for danger. He felt like the Biblical Daniel, entering the lion’s den. Though he doubted the end of his story would look anything like Daniel’s.

“Just through here,” Lawrence Chen said, opening a door and beckoning James through it. His English was excellent, James thought as he stepped into the room, completely accentless beyond the mishmash of what sounded like Birmingham and maybe London. James wondered how he’d gotten so good.

The room was normal, James noted with a sweep of his gaze, dark wood and sensible furnishings. “So,” he said, crossing his arms again and leveling Lawrence Chen with a flat stare, “you want to have a _chat_. About me using your girls.” This could go very poorly.

\---

The defensiveness on this new man was certainly something to write home about, matched only by the red hot temper boiling close to the surface of James's skin. Fai had met plenty of men like this, especially after the war. The fight of the front lines never really left them and sometimes, more often than not for some, they needed to fight again in order to feel at peace. For James, it seemed, that fight was often interspersed with sex, as it was for so many others.

Once again, Fai tried not to get too excited by that. This Mr. Pike seemed a bit more likely to just punch him in the face and leave than punch him in the ways he wanted. Not that the healer was even considering the possibility, of course. Not yet.

"I do, yes." Fai breezed on into the room and sat himself down in a sensible armchair, looking just as easy in this space as if he were at home. For all intents and purposes, he _did_ spend more time in the Red building than in his actual house. "Take a seat, please, Mr. Pike. This is a conversation, not an interrogation."

James clenched his jaw and hesitated, glancing with clear wariness to the chair opposite Fai before rigidly seating himself on the edge of the cushion. Fai suspected the only reason he sat at all was the table between the two chairs that offered the stranger a minimal sort of protective barrier, should things go south. They wouldn't, but Fai didn't begrudge a new customer his quirks; particularly one as handsome as this.

Fai crossed his legs ankle-to-knee and smiled in his calm, inoffensive sort of way. "I don't mean to offend you, Mr. Pike, but I always take special interest and concern when the pain play girls are involved. I like to get readings off of the men that pay for them, to make sure they'll be able to restrain themselves." He paused and leaned back into the chair, lazily spreading his arms out along the armrests. "What's the term, 'hurt, not harm'? Well, I'm sure you're familiar. I get the impression that these aren't the first girls you've gotten rough with for release?"

If James Pike's jaw clenched any harder, Fai thought, he might very well crack his teeth. Which, of course, only served as a small motivator for Fai to continue; if he was going to trust a man to play hard with his girls, after all, he needed to make sure his temper was under moderate control.

Fai's smile sharpened, showing that the quality wasn't, in fact, a trick of the red lights downstairs. "Or... Excuse me, should I say ' _people'_ , not _'women'_? I wouldn't want to limit what I'm sure is an extensive resume of experience for you."

\---

 _You little shit_ , James thought, a reluctant thread of amusement weaving through the hot wave of anger in his chest. There was no way this man didn’t know what he was saying, but the fact that he would say it so brazenly, so openly… “What exactly are you implyin’?” James growled, hands clenched on his knees.

Lawrence Chen seemed completely unaffected, leaning back in his chair and surveying James with interested eyes. “I’m not _implying_ anything, Mr. Pike, I’m stating a fact. This is clearly not your first time playing with pain, and I doubt you limited yourself to women. So, tell me a bit about yourself and we’ll see if our services are a good fit.”

The _nerve_ of this man. James got to his feet, looming over the sitting chink and trying to control his urge to just hit that cool, knowing expression off of his face. Anger and shame boiled inside of him, and he forced out through gritted teeth, “If this is how you treat payin’ customers, I’m takin’ my business elsewhere.”

“But if you were able to get what you needed from another whorehouse, you would have already gone there,” Lawrence Chen refuted, eyes still damnably _knowing_ . “You look like a relatively smart man, I’m sure we can find something to fit your tastes, no matter how _uncommon--_ ”

The wave of anger in James’ chest burst, and he heaved the table in between them out of the way, slamming his hands down on the armrests on either side of Lawrence Chen. “I don’t appreciate,” he rumbled, face inches away from the chink’s distractingly handsome one, “bein’ made fun of.”

\---

The only sign that Fai had been ruffled by the sudden display of aggression and threat was the rustling of his hair, blown slightly to the left in the wake of the breeze Mr. Pike had created in his haste to make himself as intimidating as possible. Up close, Fai could see his aura in bright definition, roaring up around him in clouded reds and browns, grey fuzzing out the edges and making him look like a demon rising right out of the Christian Hell. It was, fortunately or unfortunately for Fai Chen, quite an arousing sight.

"A quality most people share, I'm sure. I'm not making fun of you, however, Mr. Pike." The same easy, unaffected smile returned to his face as if there wasn't an angry pain play enthusiast mere inches from his face. "Nor am I judging you. It all seems pretty cut and dry to me -- a virile, young man that came back from the war with fight still in him, needing an outlet. How many years were you on the front lines, Mr. Pike?" Calmly, he reached out a hand and hovered it close to the other man's cheek, watching the way James twitched back in reflex. "How much have you bottled up?"

“I don’t--” The angry light in James’ eyes changed slightly, bewilderment creeping in. “How’d you know I was in the war?”

"In this day and age? It'd be harder to find an able bodied man who wasn't." Fai's smile turned a bit wry before he recovered, trailing his hovering hand from next to James's face to just by his neck. "How good does it feel to take all that rage still bottled up in you and expel it onto another person? Is it better with women?" He uncrossed his legs and spread them out in the picture of lazy interest. "Or with men?"

\---

James fought to keep his eyes from dropping to that welcoming V, suddenly acutely aware that he was almost in between the other man's legs. He straightened up to put some distance between them but didn't take a step back, not wanting to look like he was retreating. "It's... It's different," he replied, startled into being more honest than he would normally allow himself to be. But he didn't think this Lawrence Chen was going to out him to the authorities; if anything, James would say that the man shared his... desires. "I can be... rougher, with the men. I know they can take more."

"True," hummed the chink, leaning back so that his hips were pushed just slightly farther forward. James swallowed and forced his eyes to remain above the man's waist, not looking at that tempting V leading up to-- "And you certainly have a lot for them to take, don't you? So much anger. I'll wager you can do some serious damage." His eyes trailed over James' body, and James felt a wave of heat rush through him.

"That's neither here nor there," James growled, trying to get this conversation back on track. His anger was quickly morphing into lust, and as badly as he'd needed to hit someone before, it was twice as bad now. "Have you gotten what you needed? Can I go rent a girl now, or have you got more questions for me, _mister_ _Chen_?"

\---

This was getting dangerous. James's aggressive energies were getting warmer, more intense, and it felt not unlike sitting right in front of a furnace. Fai stopped denying to himself years ago how attracted he was to raw, warlike behavior and the alpha male personalities that came along with it, which allowed him to fully appreciate Mr. Pike's potential to make him a very happy, very well beaten man.

Unfortunately, Fai had other obligations this particular evening. If he was going to egg on another man into hitting and fucking him senseless, he didn't want to have the looming threat of being late for a family dinner hanging over his head.

"No, Mr. Pike," the healer replied, clearing the breathy quality from his throat. "I think that will be all for now."

"Good."

And just like that, the blond war vet was gone, storming out of the room with the door slamming shut behind him. Fai's shoulders slouched almost immediately once the room was emptied of Mr. Pike's intense presence, letting out a long breath and passing a hand over his face. He needed a drink. More importantly, he needed to convince that man to get into his bed.

\---

James didn't return to the Red Rooms for several weeks after his encounter with the owner of the whorehouse. Lawrence Chen had shaken him up, unnerved him with his easy reading of James' desires, and James did not want to run into him again. Unfortunately the Red Rooms _was_ the best brothel around for James' type of play, and after a month of no roughness with his sex James _needed_ it.

So he went back. Chen owned the business; he was probably far too busy to be on the floor. And besides, he had no reason to seek James out again - they'd had their talk, Chen had cleared him for whatever 'regulars' list he'd needed to be on, and that was the end of it. No need for anything else.

"Mister Pike," a smooth voice said at his shoulder, and James cursed himself for twelve kinds of a fool as he turned around. "It's been a while since we've seen you. I hope I didn't scare you off the last time we spoke." Lawrence Chen slipped onto the stool next to him at the bar and smiled that sharp smile.

James grunted, hackles immediately rising at the insinuation that he had been _frightened_. "Busy," he gritted out, fingers tightening around his mug of beer. Perhaps if he ignored the irritating man, he would go away.

"Ah, of course," Chen nodded as the bartender deposited a small, fat porcelain bottle and an equally small cup in front of him. "The life of an unskilled laborer is constant work." He poured himself a drink, the liquid an odd milky-white color, and tossed it back like a shot.

James idly wondered about just how much trouble he would get in if he decked the infuriating man. He took another swig of beer to calm himself. "I'm not unskilled," he growled. "I work for a silversmith. More honest work than _you've_ ever done."

Chen smiled, leaning in closer as several patrons shoved their way up to the bar. "That's true," he agreed. "Providing jobs and work for a quarter of the city's factories and whorehouses is not nearly so honorable as working for a silversmith, is it?"

James really, really wanted to punch this man in the face. "Do you _mock_ me?" he growled, finally turning to face Chen and crowding up into his space again, despite how unintimidated Chen had been the last time he'd tried it.

"Mock you?" Chen asked in a tone of false surprise, looking up at him fearlessly. "Of course not. You seem to take offense very easily, mister Pike; is there something you're trying to compensate for?"

James grabbed the front of the chink's nice collared shirt, slamming him into the bar and pressing up against him. "You," he said lowly, trying to ignore the heat of Chen's body and focus on his anger, not his rising lust, "are just _asking_ for a beating."

\---

"Yes," Fai breathed, feeling the sharpness of the counter's edge dig into his back and the tightness of his shirt collar around his neck and _loving_ it. "You're quite right, Mr. Pike. I am."

An unmistakable shadow of surprise and lust passed over James's face and Fai felt his heart rate accelerate. The furious fire melting off of the other man was intoxicating; he wanted him, wanted his hands on Fai's body, hurting him in the best way possible. He wanted it _now._

There was a loud shout and all of a sudden, the delicious heat crowded up and under Fai's skin was gone, leaving him cold from its absence.

“ _Nanwu!_ ” The barside bodyguard called out, crowding up into Fai’s space to replace James’s fire with something much less pleasant. When he glanced over the burly guard’s shoulder, he saw James struggling under the hold of two other guards; the ones that always watched out for him and his family when in the Red building. Guards that likely just saw him get assaulted at the bar. " _Lei hao ma? Lei ipa?”_

_Whoops._

" _M hai._ ” Fai shook his head to rid the cloud of lust that had settled there, drawing back on his professional self to diffuse the situation. Mr. Pike looked about two seconds from ripping one of the guards’ arms off, and loyalty was a hard-won attribute in the crime world of Birmingham. Fai didn't particularly want to have to pay injury pension and put out an ad for new guards.

He held up his hand and, without having to say a word, the guards immediately released the Englishman and stepped away from both him and the healer.

“ _Deoui m zyu_. Mr. Pike and I were simply talking and had a mild disagreement. We’ve both had a bit too much to drink.” This was, of course, a lie -- Fai had only had the one sip of mijui, and the silversmith had been on his first and only beer, if he had indeed been here to hire one of the girls for the night. The Red Rooms had a strict policy on intoxicated patrons being disallowed from using any of the whores.

" _Nanwu--_ ” The barside guard stepped forward, doubt etched into the stern lines of his face, but one small glance from Fai silenced him. Quietly, the guard bowed his head and took a step back again.

“ _Wǒ huì chǔlǐ zhè jiàn shì._ ” I’ll handle this. “ _Líkāi tā._ ” Leave him.

With visible hesitance, the guards all made their retreat, eyes trained on a red-faced and sincerely confused James Pike. Fai caught his gaze for a moment and held it just long enough to avoid suspicion before he turned and began taking easy steps towards the staircase.

“Come along, Mr. Pike. We’d best sober up in my office.”

\---

James knew that grabbing Chen had been a bad idea. He just hadn't realized how bad an idea it was until he'd been forcibly yanked backwards and restrained while another guard yelled in their weird language. James nearly threw one guard into the other out of reflex, his mind still focused on Chen's words just before they'd been interrupted.

_"Yes, you're quite right, Mr. Pike. I am."_

What did that even mean? Lawrence Chen _wanted_ James to beat him? As in... Sexually? James followed the Chinese man up the stairs, mind in a whirl. The door closed behind him and James burst out, "What did you mean? You _want_ me to beat you?"

Chen raised an eyebrow, turning to face him. "Why yes, Mr. Pike, that is exactly what I meant. You didn't think yourself the only man with such desires, did you?"

James scowled, his earlier anger returning as he was reminded why he didn't like this mouthy little chink. "Watch yourself," he growled, taking a threatening step closer. "You couldn't handle what I want to give you."

Chen leaned in, eyes wide and intent. "Really, Mr. Pike? And what is it you _want_ to give me, exactly?"

\---

The next thing Fai saw was the smooth surface of his office’s center table rapidly approaching his face as James grabbed him by the neck and pushed -- no, not pushed,  _threw_ \-- him against it. There it was, the breaking of the tension that Fai had been building, a crack in Pike’s battle-hardened armor. Red rage flowed out of it and leaked into his aura like magma seeping out of a volcano. Fai didn’t have to see it to know that he’d gotten through to the furious energy under James’s skin. He could taste it in the air.

With a hoarse chuckle, the healer pushed himself up from the table and turned to face the other man, smirking. “It took you long enough, Mr. Pike. I was starting to become concerned that you were a bit _slow_ on the uptake--”

Fai’s next jab was cut off abruptly with a hand snapping shut around his throat, James’s face inches from his, fingers bruising his skin with a grip like hot iron.

“Shut your fucking mouth,” James growled from low in his throat and Fai struggled to suck in a breath, lust and arousal rolling through his body like a wave. It had been so long; too long, since he’d been touched like this.

The second time Fai was thrown onto the table, he landed to the sound of a _crack!_ in the sturdy wood, pain blossoming up his right shoulder as he gasped for air.

“ _Fuck,_ " he groaned, trying to push himself up again and finding that he couldn’t because James was already there, between his legs and fisting a hand in his hair. A sharp yank had Fai’s head tilting back and his neck arching up as he cried out, hands darting up to grab at James’s shoulders.

“I told you,” James nearly spat in his face, pulling Fai’s hair tighter and forcing another cry from him. It felt _incredible._  “You can’t handle it.”

Fai wheezed from the awkward angle his throat was forced into, the sound turning into a hoarse laugh. His fingers dug into the fabric of Pike’s shirt and _tugged,_  tearing the first two buttons of his poorly tailored dress shirt out of the seam.

“Go on, Mr. Pike,” he rasped, pulse pounding and limbs starting to shake in anticipation. “Show me what you can do.”

\---

James could hear his blood rushing in his ears. He had never wanted to hit somebody so badly in his entire life. When he bought a whore it was just sex, just a release of his urge to hurt and be hurt -- it wasn't about the whore herself. With Lawrence Chen it was _personal._  He wanted to hit Chen, not some faceless prostitute. He wanted to make this man bleed.

But that was going too far; he'd never deliberately drawn blood before, settling for bruises and welt marks, and that was going to have to be enough tonight as well. Roughly shoving Chen over onto his stomach, James yanked his belt out if his pants, shrugging off his ripped shirt with another burst of anger. He'd make Chen pay for that. Possibly literally.

Bracing his left hand on Chen's neck to keep him still, James adjusted the belt in his right hand and let it fly.

The first hit was incredible; Chen jolted and cried out, but James didn't even pause, cracking the belt across the man's arse two, three, four more times. The pain, he knew from experience, was breathtaking. He didn't bother trying to be careful, trying to lay the blows on fresh spots that hadn't been hit before; he let the belt fall where it would, criss-crossing earlier marks until Chen's entire arse would be bruised and purple in the morning.

When the count reached somewhere around twenty-five, James stopped and took a step back, breathing hard. The belt fell limply to his side and he stared at the chink still bent over his desk, cock rock hard in his denims. He needed to see it. The marks he'd made were still covered by Chen's trousers, and James needed to _see_ them. He stumbled forward, hands scrabbling for the flies of the other man's trousers.

\---

Fai’s legs were shaking. His nails had dug small tears in the untreated wood of his table as he had scrambled for purchase, the skin on his ass turning from _painful_ to _unrecognizable_ as it was hit again and again and again. The talisman tattooed in a vertical line down the center of his back was screaming inside his body, protesting the assault on his person and desperately trying to rally to heal the blossoming red and purple marks as quickly as possible. Fai didn’t let it. He wanted those marks to stay, inked into his skin and bringing him to tears every time he sat down. They hurt so badly that he was certain he was bleeding, tears leaking involuntarily from his eyes and mixing with the sweat from his brow that made his face slide against the table with each hit.

It felt so, so good.

The cries following each hit had died off to whimpers after the tenth hit, and the whimpers had fallen into quiet, ragged breathing after the seventeenth. His mind was a surreal twist of crystal clear focus and dizzying lust, only made worse by the way his groin was pressed painfully into the edge of the table.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he groaned, and shifted to test how much strength he had in his legs. There wasn’t much. Distantly, he discovered that his cock was impossibly hard and leaking in his suit trousers.

He made a desperate sort of mewling noise when he felt James’s hands scrambling to undo his button and fly and immediately squirmed on the table, worming his hands underneath his body to help get them undone as soon as possible. Fai knew what James wanted; he wanted to see what he’d done, wanted to see what marks he’d left.

The healer shoved his pants down without any finesse, feeling them catch for a moment over the (swollen) swell of his ass before pooling at his ankles, taking his underwear with them. The cool air felt like a slap against the abused skin and he groaned, gripping the edge of the table and pushing back to try to relieve some of the harsh pressure against his now-exposed cock.

“Well?” he rasped, still panting, still struggling to orient himself over the pounding of blood in his ears. “Are you satisfied, Mr. Pike?”

\---

James barely heard Chen's question over the pounding of blood in his ears. The skin of Chen's arse was swollen and red, some parts lined with angry-looking welts and other parts already beginning to bruise. It was absolutely beautiful, and James wanted to do it again and again.

"I don't think I am, _Mr. Chen_ ," he belatedly responded to Lawrence's question, reaching out and gripping one firm cheek in his hand. He didn't squeeze, but any touch must be excruciating at this point, and he basked in the chink's hiss of pain. "Your arse might be well done, but your back and your thighs are pristine and clear. And look at you," he continued, trying to hide his awe as he caught sight of the man's hard cock pressed against the table, "you're gaggin' for it, aren't you? I bet..." James swallowed, because he'd never had a partner who enjoyed this as much as he did. "I bet you could come just from a beltin', couldn't you? I bet your little cock would spurt all over the desk just from me whippin' you." James undid the buttons on his own denims, giving his own erection a little more room, and shoved Chen's shirt up his back to bare fresh skin, unmarked by anything except a single tattoo running down his spine. "Let's find out, 'ey?"

\---

“Fuck,” Fai swore, and then again, and again, and again, quieter and more broken each time as a full body shiver worked through him. Mr. Pike was a _filthy_ talker. Out of all the things he’d read and predicted about this man so far, pillow talk wasn’t something he’d anticipated him being proficient in. But damn, he really, really was. Fai’s erection throbbed painfully, trapped between his abdomen and the harsh wood of the table, excited at the prospect of the beating continuing and at the implication that he could come from just the pain. He could, of course, if James continued to be this ruthless.

The pain in his ass was just starting to settle into a deep, dull ache when the first blow came down across his shoulder blades. Pain seared into his skin like a line of fire and he yelped, jarred forward from surprise. There wasn’t going to be any time wasted. Good.

James hit his back with the same ferocity he used to attack his ass, but now the available space was longer, wider, and offered more opportunity for creativity. Fai’s back became a canvas of stripes, horizontal lines down his back, one after the other, each making him grit his teeth to block out the animal-like moans he wanted to make. Then, there were the diagonal ones that came across the straight rows of fire, bubbling up new welts and making his shoulders ache with the way he scratched and scrabbled at the table in desperation. The last two hits were placed on his lower back, overlapping onto his ass, and those were the ones that made him scream.

His whole upper body throbbed, pulsing with his accelerated heart rate as the blood rushed up to his skin and his protection tattoo shrieked with disapproval, sparking down along his spine and making him shake. Beneath his abdomen, he felt like he was about to _explode_ , teetering on the edge of an untouched orgasm.

Dimly, he registered that his face was completely slick with tears and sweat now, his mouth open as he gasped for air and drooled onto the table like some sort of debauched whore. There was shame in that, and embarrassment, and yet they strangely only made everything else ten times better. Nobody had ever hit him like this; nobody had ever dared to get this brutal.

“ _Please_ …” Fai heard himself begging, still trying to stretch his arms out to find purchase on something, anything to ground him through the pain.

He heard the hit to his thighs before he felt it, cutting through the air like a knife. The thighs were meatier, had more impact absorption, but their proximity to his ass combined sharp and dull pain until his eyes blurred over completely with tears. Four hits. Five hits. Six hits. _Seven._

Fai screamed as he came, every muscle in his body locking up and burning in protest. He squeezed his eyes shut as his cock spurted between his stomach and the table, finally finding pleasure amidst the intense pain. The moment the aftershocks had run through his limbs like waves relentlessly crashing through his blood, his legs buckled and he slid from the table, knees hitting the wooden floor with a harsh _thud!_

\---

 _Jesus, Mary and Joseph._ James fumbled for his own cock as Lawrence arched and _came just from being belted._ The other man had barely crumpled to the floor when James bit back a moan and came himself, spilling onto the floor in an orgasm that whited out his vision and made his legs go weak.

When he could finally think again, James looked down and frowned at how Lawrence was sitting. "Hey. Hey, you shouldn't sit like that. 'Ere..." He got his hands under Lawrence's arms and heaved him over until he was lying flat on his stomach, no longer putting pressure on his--James winced--very abused backside. Some of the welts had broken open, James wasn't sure when, and little dots and lines of red were now scattered across the man's skin.

James sat back on his heels and looked at the peacefully breathing man on the floor before him. The man he had just whipped into an orgasm. The son of the Chen family.

 _Well, screw me sideways and send me to the cleaners._ James did not like his chances of leaving the building alive.

He cleared his throat. "Er... You alright?"

\---

Fai hissed in discomfort when he was moved, but other than that made no noise at all. The table was a wreck, scratched and smeared with tears, sweat, and come, which he was going to regret later but couldn't bring himself to now. His body felt too good to care about anything but the current moment, how his skin burned and throbbed and ached in the most wonderful way. He felt like he'd been torn open and exposed, shamed and humiliated in his vulnerability, and it left him in a state of bliss he hadn't felt in much, much too long.

"Mm." Fai hummed, finally opening his eyes to see James crouched down and watching him with a look of slightly fearful concern. Of course, he wasn't under the impression that that concern was for him. The man _had_ just beaten the shit out of one of the biggest crime lords in Birmingham with a belt. If Fai were in the same position, he'd be planning an exit strategy right about now.

As it happened, though, Fai wasn't done with him yet. With a low groan, he eased himself from his stomach to his side, grimacing as the edges of some of the belt marks were pressed into the floor. Compared to his backside, the exposed part of his chest looked oddly pale, as did his legs and stomach. "You've got quite an arm on you, Mr. Pike," Fai panted, body tingling from his explosive orgasm despite his cock remaining hard and heavy at the apex of his thighs. "I'm impressed."

\---

James blinked slowly. “Thanks, I guess,” he said, thrown a bit off-center by Lawrence’s casual attitude. So… He wasn’t going to get dumped in a cart and his body dropped in a dump site outside of the city? His lips firmed, remembering why he’d been so angry to begin with. “I toldya you had it coming.”

“Mm, you did.” Lawrence looked up at him through his lashes, a smirk tugging at his lips. “But if I remember correctly, you also said that I couldn’t handle what you wanted to give me, and I don’t see any sign of that yet.”

James stared at the crazy man, and then let out a disbelieving huff of laughter, raking a hand through his hair. “I did say that,” he replied, leaning forward, now no longer at all afraid of getting doused by the Chinese mob. “You think you can take more, huh? Well tell me what you want, and I’ll take you past the point where you c’n scream.”

\---

“I don’t _think_ I can take more, Mr. Pike,” Fai drawled, propping himself up on an elbow to lean in just as James was doing, smirk ever present on his face. The pain thrummed through every bit of his body, reminding him of what he was, what he liked with every heartbeat. "I _know_ I can take more. Or are you a bit tired?"

The expression of surprised bemusement disappeared off of James's face, instantly replaced with something darker, more sinister. Fai's cock twitched with interest between his thighs, his abdomen tightening with arousal. He could let this man beat him all night until he was bloody and broken, opened up like a sacrifice for his own desires. Pike's energy was simply that intoxicating.

"Don't talk t'me like that, Chen," he warned, edging closer to Fai's face and sending a shiver down the healer's spine.

"I don't--" Fai started, and was abruptly cut off by James's hand closing around his throat and slamming him back down onto the ground. The force sent a brutal wave of pain down the welts and stripes along his backside, tearing a cry from his throat. White dots spattered across his vision and he moaned, trying to grab James's shoulders again but finding his arms a bit tangled from the way his dress shirt had been pushed up around his shoulders. Unsurprisingly, the restriction only made him more excited.

\---

God above, this man wanted to be _wrecked_. That was the only possible answer for him goading James like this, for pushing for more even after getting whipped until he came untouched. James considered his options: they were in a sitting room, which didn’t supply many options for spontaneous pain play, and as much as James wanted Lawrence to hurt, he didn’t want his welts to break open and scar, which was a possibility if he laid the chink out on his back on the hard floor.

His own cock was trying valiantly to rise again, and James dragged his eyes over the delicious sight in front of him without removing his hand from Lawrence’s throat. His arse was swollen and red, practically calling out for more attention, and James felt a jolt of lust flash through him at the thought of…

James shook his head, trying to banish the idea. Sodomy was a sin, and just because he’d done it in the trenches didn’t mean Chen would let him do it here. Instead he wrangled Chen’s nice dress shirt up further around his arms, tying the ends around a table leg and probably stretching the fabric beyond repair. He took a small amount of vindictive glee in that, sitting back and briefly admiring the picture the chink made; half up on his knees, body forced into an awkward position by the restraints around his arms and the marks on his back.

"Don't you look nice," he rumbled, and then leaned forward and finally got a hand on Chen’s cock. It was smaller than James’, he noted with satisfaction, hard and curved and almost cute, the foreskin stretched over the wet head. He ran his fingers over it slowly, exploring without setting a real rhythm. Chen trembled and cursed at him, but James kept to his own pace, rolling the chink’s hairless (how odd) sac in his palm before withdrawing his hand completely.

“Tell me if this hurts,” he said sweetly, and then clamped his fingers around the soft skin that attached Chen’s sac to his body and _tugged_.

\---

“ _Fuck!_ ” Fai swore, body jerking forward in an attempt to get away from the sudden and sharp pain of having his bollocks yanked on. The way Pike had tied his wrists to the leg of the table was effective -- too effective -- and had the healer squirming uncomfortably on the ground as his body struggled to register a whole new layer of pain on top of what he was already experiencing. His whole body _ached_. Between the welts and bruises across his back, ass, and thighs, the trembling weakness in his legs, and the core strength required for him to stay in his current position, the assault on his sac was pushing him closer to his pain tolerance limit than he’d experienced in a long, long time. Yet, as much as he yelled and writhed while James tugged and soothed and tugged some more, he absolutely loved it.

Due to Fai’s preoccupation with the sharp, alternating pain near his dick, he found himself caught completely unaware when James’s other hand found its way to his nipples. One sharp, harsh pinch had tears pricking back at his eyes and his cock throbbing as he shook and trembled, body confused as it tried to arch into the abuse to his nipples but retreat from the pain in his balls. The words tumbling out of his mouth stopped making sense, everything a blur of Cantonese, English, and simple incoherence.

\---

James wished he had something to make this easier -- he only had two hands, and there was so much he wanted to do to the writhing man before him. Even just a pair of clothespins would allow him to clamp Chen's nipples and free up the hand currently tormenting the peaked brown nubs. But he only had his hands and his ingenuity, and that'd be enough.

He stopped pulling and twisting Chen's balls and moved his hand up to Chen's arse, kneading one cheek lightly. The bruises were already purpling and the welts must feel like they were on fire, because the chink's reaction was gratifyingly loud. James grinned.

He had never seen someone _enjoy_ pain like this before. It made him reckless, a bit, pulling more roughly on Chen's nipples and kneading and slapping lightly at the man's already abused arse. Then James went back to Chen's cock, grasping the steel-hard shaft in his fingers and squeezing too tight before beginning to strip it roughly, wanting to see if the Chinese man could actually come with this much pain in his prick. His free hand went to Chen's back, pressing randomly on the marks and keeping him overwhelmed.

Chen sobbed and cursed, his words totally incoherent, and then he froze, body trembling slightly as wet warmth spilled over James' fingers. James caught his breath, watching Chen come, his own cock throbbing between his legs. Then he blinked as Chen sagged, eyes fluttering, and...passed out in his restraints.

"Fuck," James cursed, scrambling forward to check on the man's pulse only to find it strong and steady under his fingers. Letting out a breath, James sat back, absently wiping his come-covered hand on Chen's shirt as he pondered this. The man had been so overstimulated that he'd passed out when he came, which was a huge compliment to James, but left him rather hanging. With a mental shrug, James wrapped a hand around his own prick, still hard and throbbing from hurting Chen. It took barely a minute before James spilled all over Chen's back with a quiet grunt, painting his bruises and welts with white.

He let out a huge sigh and sat back on his heels, warm and buzzing from two incredible orgasms, and finally untied Chen's arms with fumbling fingers. The smaller man was still out, so James picked him up and resettled him on a small settee in the corner, out of the puddle of his own come and—hopefully—relatively comfortable on his abused nipples and cock. He draped Chen's shirt over his back for some sort of modesty and went looking for some water, luckily finding a pitcher and some cups tucked away on a table. Bringing them back to the prone figure on the couch, James poured a cup of water and debated his next move.

"Hey," he said, tapping Chen's cheek. "Wake up."

\---

Fai's ears were ringing as he slowly came to, his brain and body protesting the amount of stimulation it took for him to actually _pass out_. Pike's voice floated around his head, fuzzy and muffled as something pushed into his cheek. Vaguely, he hoped that it wasn't the other man's dick. He didn't have the presence of mind to keep his teeth under enough control to safely give a blowjob.

Luckily, Fai realized as he peeled open one eye, then the other, it was just James's finger. "Mm," he grumbled, already feeling his voice becoming hoarse from all his screaming. Somehow, he'd gotten onto the small two-person couch; the fabric scraped against his raw nipples and cock in a way that was distinctly uncomfortable. "What a gentleman," he scratched out, chuckling despite the very, very strong pain pulsing through him, as he caught sight of the water glass. With no small amount of effort, he pushed himself up onto his elbows and reached for the water glass, knocking it back in two large gulps. It felt wonderful on his throat, though it wasn't going to do anything for the damaged skin all along his backside. Fai wasn't worried, however; his office upstairs was always stocked with herbs and potions that would fix him up right quick.

"You alright?" Pike asked, and Fai couldn't help his smile. He knew that look, the look men got when the reality of their situation was settling in. There wasn't any doubt in his mind that James Pike knew exactly who he was and what family he was the second head of. It was impressive in itself that despite knowing his position, James went ahead and beat him anyway.

"I will be fine, Mr. Pike, and so will you." Carefully, _very carefully_ , Fai maneuvered himself into a sitting position, grimacing and letting out a grunt of pain as his arse screamed in protest. Even with the sexual tension removed, it still felt good. Fai felt grounded, clearheaded, and sharply focused, all the things he'd come to associate with sex-inspired pain.

"Aye?" James raised his eyebrows, clearly dubious, and Fai poured himself another glass of water. This time, he sipped at it as he talked.

"When you go downstairs, use the back exit. Nobody will bother you." Sip, sip. "From now on, when you want to see me, knock on that back door. Tell them you have an appointment with me, and they'll wave you through. I have plenty of non-Chinese clients for healing and reading. They won't bat an eye at you."

Pike squared off his shoulders and frowned, some of his defensive energy returning and clouding the clear red that had settled around his face. "You're makin' a lot of assumptions, there, Chen."

"Fai, actually," the healer corrected, finishing his second glass of water. "If you're going to be beating me into an orgasmic coma on a regular basis, I'd prefer it if you called me by my given name." He peeled his shirt off of his back, not seeming bothered by the sweat and come that had kept it stuck on in the first place. "Now, I'd hurry, if I were you, before the lovely gentlemen you met downstairs earlier begin to get suspicious."

\---

James stared for a moment as the Chinese man began to clean himself up, unsure of what had just happened. He'd been given the man's Chinese name, told to come back, and then dismissed, all in short order. Chen — _Fai_ seemed unconcerned with what had just happened, wiping himself down and not appearing the least bit angry or vengeful.

"Right," James said slowly. "I'll... Be seein' you, then."

Fai hummed agreement, walking over to his pants, and James took the stairs to the back door, exiting out into the damp smoggy Birmingham night. He jammed his hands into his pockets and started walking, puzzling out what had just happened.

Fai had loved what James had done to him. That much was obvious, even if James was still finding it hard to believe. And he had loved it so much that he had, apparently, invited James back to do it again.

_Bloody hell._

James shouldn't go back there. That was the Chinese mob, the Chen family heir, and getting mixed up in that was a supremely stupid thing to do. No matter how beautifully Fai took James' pain. _I won't go back,_ James told himself firmly, kicking a loose pebble down the cobblestone street and watching it skitter off into the darkness. _That's too much mess t' get involved with. I kin find other people to hurt. I won't go back there again._

Even as he thought it, though, James knew he was lying.

 


End file.
